A rule of thumb that my wife Jun and I have when it comes to checking restaurants is to be wary of the F-word: fusion. While we certainly appreciate the efforts of a restaurant to combine multiple culinary influences and traditions to come up with a unique point of view, the execution more often than not didn’t quite work as well as we had hoped. Perhaps that is why, more than three years after we had moved to the DC metro area, we still didn’t visit Cranes, a restaurant helmed by Spanish chef Pepe Moncayo featuring the so-called “Spanish kaiseki” from Spanish Catalan and Japanese cuisines. We finally decided to check out the restaurant last month with a friend in DC we hadn’t seen in a while. While some dishes were above average, we found the overall experience to be somewhat mediocre.

Cranes has both a la carte and omakase tasting menu options. We opted for the former thinking that if we liked our experience, we would try the latter on a future visit. The first bad omen came when our server very enthusiastically recommended jamon Iberico claiming it is one the best he had tasted in his life. Jun, who is rather discerning on our taste of all Spanish jamon, was intrigued and ordered it, only to whisper to me that this was nowhere close to the fine quality meat she had tried in Sevilla, Spain. Some dishes were fairly solid, like the wagyu short rib aburi with crème fraiche or the fish tataki with beet and citrus dashi had more Japanese accent. The best dish of the night, we all agreed, was the delicious chicken katsu sando with shallot and okonomiyaki sauce, which (in multiple portions) I think could’ve been our entire meal to go along with cocktails that night.

On the other hand, the other dishes that came, like the creatively plated patatas bravas, shishito peppers or market fish, didn’t quite make a lasting impression. The wagyu beef with radicchio and celery root puree was tasty, but does it surpass countless other wagyu we had had at other places? I had my doubts. For dessert, we shared brown butter churros accompanied by black sesame chocolate sauce and miso caramel. The churros’ texture was what we had expected, but the texture of both sauces (which was more liquid than gooey) completely missed the mark, and I had to wonder if anyone from the kitchen had tried traditional churros before.

Getting a reservation at Cranes is relatively easy, and the dining room during our visit in an early Saturday evening wasn’t crowded. The restaurant has a nice mix of wine, cocktail and sake (based on the website’s description, the chef seems to have very high passion for sake to be pair with Spanish-Japanese cuisine). The stylish dining room would offer a solid option for dining with a group of friends and family. Our server told us the omakase dishes are fairly different from those in the a la carte section, so perhaps we should’ve tried the tasting menu instead. For now, Cranes is just another exhibit for us to be mindful of fusion restaurant concepts. Knowing how great Spanish and Japanese dishes are, you would think merging these two countries’ culinary influences would be a slam dunk culinary moment, but unfortunately it felt rather short of our expectations.

Address: 724 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

KenScale: 7.25/10 (Jun’s Score: 7.25/10)

Website: https://cranes-dc.com/

Reservation via Resy